And yes it is adding to the cost of college but this is only one is a long line of reasons that price of college is rising. I watched a movie that claimed that the biggest contributor to this is the building of new building on campus and the rise in administrators for the same number of faculty/students as being more at fault.
I'm pretty sure these lavish athletic/leisure buildings qualify under "new building on campus," especially when you consider the design/construction costs on a lazy river, plus ongoing maintenance. Add in the fact that they contribute nothing to the purported mission of an institution of higher learning (unless the mission is to learn to get high?), and what we're really talking about here is a symbol of just how badly mismanaged our public educational resources have become.
Nobody is saying schools shouldn't have fitness centers (though maybe it's time someone SHOULD), but it can be done in a cost-controlled manner (free weights don't cost much to maintain, after all, and cost provisions for intramural sports often means cutting the grass). These schools are doing it the other way. It's emblematic of the overall problem, because it becomes a game of one-upping the competition, and the Cold War showed us all how that works out.
It's hard to climb the national joke that are the college rankings by improving your technology department, because what makes one institution "better" at teaching is largely a manner of opinion. So why spend $10m on that, when you can build a $60m facility and see instant results?
Oh, wait, UCF already has a $60m facility? We'll spend $80m!!
